


Space Hamlet: Hamlet In Space

by xX_MidnightEssence_Xx



Category: Dream Cycle - H. P. Lovecraft, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5666113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xX_MidnightEssence_Xx/pseuds/xX_MidnightEssence_Xx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hamlet except it's in space, and Hamlet and Horatio decide to just prank Uncle Claudius really bad instead of killing him. All is going pretty well until an idol Bokrug the Great Water Lizard starts to come to life, and Ophelia joins the FortinBro, crown prince of Swag Planet, on an intergalactic conquest that could change Space Denmark forever. Hamlet and Horatio are gay for each other but there's no sex described in text. There is a lot of cursing but most of it is spelled wrong. UPDATE: illustrations for this fic can b found at melymbrosia.tumblr.com/tagged/space-hamlet</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Somethins Emo In Space Denmark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamlet is havin a Really Good Time being miserable and hating himself, but the Horatio shows up, back from Space College, and suddenly Hamlet can't concentrate on being emo bcs he's busy having gay thoughts about his pal.

Chapter 1  
The skies above resembled a tumultuous sea that some wealthy prankster had filled with fun bath bombs: a violent swirling mess of rich pinks and violets with an occasional vein of brilliant gold. If you or I were to look up at those skies, we likely would have been filled either with insurmountable wonder, profound and horrible terror, or a dreadful mix of the two – for skies such as those have never graced the sad helm of our planet. But as our super emo protagonist Prince Hamlet gazed into the heavens, he felt nothing. This strange and beautiful sky was simply a fixture over Space Denmark, and he had grown used to it in much the same way that we take for granted the flowers in springtime. Every once in a while, in a moment of silence and reflection, the sky’s decadent beauty would register vaguely in the back of his mind, but in the times between those infrequent reveries it was nearly as unnoticed as it was unappreciated.  
Hamlet sat under a cool space tree, gazing not into the sky itself but rather at a quickly approaching object suspended therein – a spaceship hurtling madly downwards and glowing with a hot white light because it was on fire. He watched with indifferent curiosity as the spaceship fell. From such a great distance the descent almost looked gentle.  The ship disappeared below the horizon, and there was a brilliant flash, and an awesome explosion noise, and Hamlet could only guess that all of the passengers trapped inside the smoldering hull were now dead. He giggled. Haha, death. He was so emo.  
He flung himself down in the soft blue space grass and pushed his hair over his eyes. Life is short and unpleasant, and we are all but specks of dust drifting endlessly into the Great and Horrible Void. Ugh. What was he even doing, sitting under a tree reflecting on sad emo thoughts? He was a beautiful young space prince, possessing money and power beyond even his own comprehension – the world (a bizarre, alien world) was his oyster. He should go party. Life didn’t have to be horrible, probably.  
He crawled to his feet and took off at a brisk shuffle towards Space Elsinore. He knew he would find something cool to do there.  After his mother’s and uncle’s wedding, the festivities had not tapered off, but instead grew wilder and more frequent, just as my manic episodes did leading up to finals week. For the past month – although the prince had not attended them – there had been awesome space raves daily.  
“Awesome Space Raves Daily,” thought Hamlet. “That would be a great name for a band.”  
Maybe, if he survived the shitstorm that was Space Denmark, Hamlet would start a band and name it “Awesome Space Raves Daily.” Maybe they would tour the galaxy, and all their merch would be in cool Day-Glo rave colors, and there would be raves after every show, and hot space groupies.   
Maybe someday all of this awesome shit would go down — maybe someday he would learn to play an instrument — but for now, Hamlet was just going to party.  
As he continued on his way, Space Elsinore rose slowly over the horizon before him, a fantastic behemoth of angular chrome gleaming so brightly under the late afternoon sun that it looked as though it were made not of cement and metal but of light itself, a castle of fire sent from the heavens to destroy us. It shone with a light that was not beautiful, but violent, and it assaulted Hamlet’s eyes so that as he walked onward he lowered his gaze to the ground and wished desperately for a pair of cool shades. As he neared the castle, the prince could hear house music playing gently from within. There was indeed an awesome space rave going on.   
By the time he reached the castle door, the music was very loud. He could feel the bass resonate through him, and he began to fear that if he entered the castle the flesh would vibrate off his bones and he would only be a skeleton. He opened the door anyway and strolled boldly in, because skeletons are cool.  
Although he wouldn’t have admitted it, it was much to Hamlet’s relief that he did not become a skeleton upon entering Space Elsinore. His bones, although rattled a bit by the pounding bass, were safe under his skin as he walked through the loud empty hallways to his room to change into a cool rave outfit.   
Finding something suitable for a rave, however, was quite a bit harder than Hamlet had initially thought. The only thing in his closet that came close to rave wear was a bright orange squid hat, a relic of his willfully forgotten years in space high school — he and his bros Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were the Squid Squad for Halloween one year.  Hamlet wasn’t sure if people wore squid hats to raves, but it was a much brighter color than anything else he owned, so he pulled it on over his tangled black hair. He looked in the mirror. He didn’t look like a rave goer, just a sad emo boy with a squid on his head.   
 Maybe he shouldn’t even try to go. If he was so out of place just standing before the mirror in a squid hat heavens knows how weird he would feel at an actual rave, with the loud music and all the sweaty drunk space people. He dropped the squid hat on the floor and sank dejectedly onto his bed, resigning himself once again to the skinny-jeans-and-black-eyeliner melancholy that had of late been his default mode.   
He lay there for a few moments, simultaneously regretting his decision not to party and trying to work up the courage to rethink that decision, when suddenly there came a knock at his door. He reached halfheartedly in the door’s direction but made no effort to rise from the bed. He was too sad and angry to answer a door right now.  
There came another knock.   
“Hamlet?”  
Familiarity is in most cases disappointing — to those possessing such restless souls as Hamlet’s, it is rarely anything else. The voice behind the door, however, rang with a familiarity that was at once reassuring and hopeful. Hamlet leapt off the bed and flew to the door, flinging it open with such force that he probably damaged the hinges a little bit, but he didn’t care, for within the doorframe stood the wonderful Horatio, and his warm amber eyes were like a cup of tea on a blustery day, and at his appearance the very air in the room seemed to grow lighter. Hamlet stepped forward and hugged him.  
They stood there in silence for some moments, the Prince’s face buried platonically in Horatio’s shirt, breathing in the scent of friendship. It was very nice. After not enough time had passed, Horatio the Human Blanket became Horatio Standing at a Polite But Still Friendly Distance, and Hamlet found the room a little chilly without his arms around him. He pushed his hair away from his eyes and leaned against the doorframe, super chill.  
“Yo.”   
“Yo.”  
“I didn’t think school was out yet. What are you doing here?”  
“Your mom.”  
Wow. That was fucking savage. Horatio was a comic genius. Hamlet laughed one of those weird pseudo-laughs where you don’t actually make any noise, but just blow air out your nose. Horatio grinned.  
“Nah. I just was kind of bored and lonely. I dunno.”  
“Wow,” said Hamlet. “That’s gay.”  
Horatio just smiled and shrugged. But it was actually really super gay.


	2. Operation Ghost Dad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horatio tells Hamlet about GhostDad. They hold hands and look at the stars.

Hamlet could not help but notice an air of great secrecy about Horatio as he led him back through the empty halls of Space Elsinore, both space boys boogieing slightly to the thumping bass. He would have been an utter idiot not to notice this super-secret attitude, as Horatio had explained it quite explicitly, saying that he had a tale of great Spookiness that absolutely no one of the court could be trusted to know, save Marcellus and a few other guards who had been directly involved in the action and thus could not be prevented from knowing even if they did prove untrustworthy. Hamlet had protested a bit at the idea of walking anywhere — the music in the castle was so loud that no one could have heard them anyways, no one would have heard them even if they set of a bomb, they could barely even hear each other, couldn’t they just stay inside? But Horatio was not taking any chances. Hamlet followed him begrudgingly out of the castle, into the gardens. I’m going to derail from the narrative here to describe these incredible space gardens.   
As was previously mentioned, the castle itself was a cruel, angular mass of gleaming metal, looking exactly like one might expect space architecture to look, but perhaps a bit more harsh. On the north side of the castle walls, however, lay the most fantastic gardens in the galaxy. Pathways paved in colorful glass snaked around and across themselves, under impossibly high-ceilinged gazebos and over glittering streams that emptied into deep still pools full of awesome space fish. There were tall trees bearing strange-colored fruit, and taller trees whose limbs were instead laden with cash money. In the very center of the garden, the colorful pathways converged in a grove of sweet-smelling trees, and in the center of this grove there was a clearing, and in this clearing stood a wondrously bizzare enormous statue, an exceedingly ancient idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug the great water-lizard. No one could say where the idol had come from, or what ancient people had made it, or just how long it had stood watch over the gardens of Space Elsinore. All that the people of Space Denmark knew was that it was a statue of a giant lizard and lizards are cool. Around the base of the idol there had been set several comfortable benches and coffee tables, and it was a hip hangout for the local space youth.  
  When they reached the great statue, the last trace of pounding house music had faded away, and Horatio was satisfied that they were out of earshot of anyone who really mattered. Yet still the air of great secrecy lingered, and, after glancing nervously about him, it was in a low and laughably melodramatic whisper that he finally spoke:  
“You’re probably wondering why I brought you here.”  
“Yes,” said Hamlet. “Yes, I am wondering why you brought me here. I’m wondering because you wouldn’t tell me. I have no idea what’s going on.”   
“If you’ll please calm your tits,” said Horatio, “I am about to tell you. Last night, after my ship landed –“  
“Oh my god, you didn’t come see me when you got here,” interrupted Hamlet, very gay and upset. “What the fuck bro… Honestly. I died missing you…”  
“Bro,” Horatio’s eyebrows seemed to be straining against the skin of his forehead, trying to escape and fly away into space. “Bro…. bro. That’s incredibly touching. Wow. I died missing you too bro.” He took a couple seconds to gaze deeply into his bro’s icy blue eyes before continuing: “Anyway though, when I got here last night I didn’t feel like sleeping, so I left my luggage with the porter and went out for a stroll out here in the gardens. I really like it out here, especially at night. It’s peaceful. Anyway, I didn’t get very far before I ran into Marcellus – right here at the lizard statue, actually. He said that he saw a ghost the night before and he was waiting for it to come again. I thought, wow, a ghost, that’s awesome, so I waited with him for a couple of hours. For a while we talked about how our lives had been going and stuff, but like, I just hadn’t seen him in so long that it was hard to find anything in common with him, you know? We don’t know any of the same memes anymore. It got really boring after a while. Just when I was about to leave, I saw it. The ghost. God, it was so spooky, with glowing eyes, and all decked out in space battle armor and stuff. It was kneeling at the base of the statue, like it was praying or something. And you’ll never guess whose ghost it was.”  
If Hamlet had been sitting down, he would have been on the edge of his seat.  
“Whose was it?”  
“The late King.”  
This was really shocking. Really shocking. Jeepus creepus. It was as though the thick sparkly atmosphere that blanketed Space Denmark had been sucked away, and Hamlet’s lunch had suddenly come to life and was trying to tunnel back out through his abdominal wall, and he felt himself grow faint. Horatio, realizing too late that perhaps he should have told Hamlet a bit more gently, sensed the Prince’s knees grow weak, and caught him around the shoulders before he could begin to fall.  
Hamlet wasn’t actually about to faint. He could totally stand on his own, but he leaned into Horatio anyways because he was warm and smelled like bergamot and libraries.   
“So. Ghost dad?”  
Hamlet’s voice was barely audible, and a little shaky. Horatio nodded solemnly.  
“Yep. Ghost dad.”  
“What did he say?”  
“He didn’t say anything. He just stared at us for awhile and then left.”   
“Oh.” Hamlet wasn’t sure if he should be disappointed or relieved.  
“Actually we were thinking maybe you could try to talk to him tonight. Since you’re his son. He probably has a death wish that he wants you to carry out or something. Maybe he longs for vengeance.”  
That sounded horrifying. Knowing that his dad’s spirit had stayed among the living while his flesh-prison lay in the grave was bad enough, and Hamlet was certain that if he went so far as to try to speak to the ghost his head would likely explode. But he was not a pussy.  
“Yeah. Awesome. That sounds great.”  
“Are you sure? You sound a little freaked out. We could maybe wait a couple days until you get used to the idea. I dunno.”  
Hamlet drew back from Horatio and straightened his spine. He was completely used to the idea. He was stone-cold unspookable.   
“Nah bro. Let’s try tonight. I’m cool.”  
“You’re totally sure you’re not a little freaked out?” Horatio held him at arm’s length, his brow furrowed in concern. The Prince definitely looked a little freaked out.  
“NO. No, no. I’m cool. I’m cool. Let’s do it. Operation Ghost Dad.”  
Horatio was fully aware of Hamlet’s aversion to the idea, but he was equally aware that his bro was prepared to — and intended to — stifle these feelings for an eternity. He sighed.  
“Alrighty. Operation ghost dad.”  
The space boys wandered back to the castle slowly, in silence, holding hands, stopping to look at cool plants along the way. The star that plays the part of sun over Space Denmark was sinking gently to the horizon, and in anticipation of its absence the sky had begun to turn its swirling rosy hues to deeper shades of violet and indigo. The first stars of the night crept stealthily in like a squad of tiny, twinkling KGB agents, so sneaky. As it grew slowly darker, the sky took on the appearance of a huge velvet canopy sprinkled with glitter. It was raw as hell. The supreme vastness of the sky was both beautiful and terrifying, and a sense of awe came over Hamlet, and he wondered at the very idea of space. For millennia now his people had been travelling to the furthest reaches of space — to him a trip to another solar system seemed as a trip to the next state does for us pathetic earthlings — yet still the great expansive emptiness of it all was astounding. He stopped suddenly in front of Space Elsinore and gazed upward, marveling at the endless sky.   
“Space is so freaky,” he said.  
Horatio stopped walking.  
“Yeah. It is.”  
“I can’t believe we’re from space. That’s insane.”  
“Damn straight.”  
Hamlet smiled. How cool was it that he was from space? Space is awesome. Honestly space is just so great. Wow. 


	3. Jeepus Creepus Thats Spooky!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus go into the garden to see GhostDad. GhostDad speaks to Hamlet and tells him a horrible secret -- and also tells him about the meaning behind the giant lizard statue in the garden. Hamlet doesnt like it one bit no-sir-ee

The night was young, and so were Hamlet and Horatio, so they should have gone to the rave that was still happening in the great hall of Space Elsinore. But they didn’t. Instead, Horatio went up to his room to unpack the last of his stuff and Hamlet went to his room to lie on the floor with all his lights on and stare at the ceiling wallowing in existential doubt. He lay there for hours. He felt completely immobilized, not only by his usual emo depression, but by the crippling fear brought about by what Horatio had told him that evening. Fuckign, his dad was a ghost. Ghost dad. It was just too spooky for Hamlet to wrap his emo mind around. He glanced at the space clock on his nightstand. It was around half-past ten: just an hour and thirty minutes left until he had to confront ghost dad. The more time passed, the more nervous he became, and he found himself wishing vainly that if he moved the hands on his clock it would magically be midnight right then, and he could just get the whole spooky business over with. This was impossible though, and all Hamlet could do was lay there under the great weight of his fear. Shortly after eleven, he rolled onto his stomach. Around eleven twenty, he rolled back onto his back. At exactly eleven thirty-four, he heard someone knocking at his door, and sat up abruptly.  
“Who is it?”  
It was Horatio and Marcellus.  
 “We should go now, so we don’t miss the ghost,” said Marcellus.  
“Ok. Let me get some shoes though.”  
Hamlet’s room was an absolute disaster, and it took him until eleven thirty-nine to find a matching pair of shoes. It was a pair of ancient canvas sneakers, faded black with doodles on the yellowing vinyl toes. By eleven forty, the sneakers had been tied, and Hamlet had also grabbed a jacket, and the three boys were on their way to the gardens.  
They arrived at the base of the idol of Bokrug at eleven forty-four — sixteen minutes before Operation Ghost Dad would launch. The initial fourteen minutes were spent pacing, checking space watches, sitting on the comfortable benches surrounding the idol only to stand back up after a few moments. There was a bit of nervous joking (What’s a ghost’s favorite fruit? Boo-berries haha.) but nobody felt confident enough to attempt any real conversation. This was not the super chill spook hunt of the previous night. Hamlet’s mere presence brought with it a great uneasiness that spread through the crew like a kitchen fire: unpleasant, inconvenient, and, more than anything else, scary.   
At eleven fifty-eight, there was absolute silence. The three space boys stood before the idol of Bokrug, completely still — afraid to move. The two remaining minutes passed like kidney stones. When it seemed that time had stopped altogether, at last they saw him.  
Ghost Dad.  
He appeared very, very gradually, materializing from the nocturnal mist that every night gathered in the grove of sweet-smelling trees surrounding the statue and the comfortable benches and coffee tables. Leaving a trail of mist behind him, he floated to the base of the idol, and knelt, as if in worship. It may be stated that Hamlet and his associates thought of the idol only as a really cool giant lizard statue, and were entirely unaware of who (what?) it represented, and its religious intent. It was then with great perplexity that they watched Ghost Dad’s display.  
It was definitely the late king Hamlet, it was him beyond any trace of a doubt, and yet — how changed he seemed. His being was rather transparent, and he glowed with an ethereal light, and his eyes seemed to have been changed for red-hot coals. But these changes were only to be expected in one whose spirit has departed from its flesh-prison, and they came as no shock at all to Hamlet. He was struck instead by a peculiar and barely perceptible change, not in the Ghost Dad’s being, but in his manner, something about him which gave the distinct impression that he had seen and known much, much more than any mortal ever had or ever would. This impression was spookier by far than any physical change could be, and it chilled Hamlet to the very core.  
For the span of a few minutes, Ghost Dad knelt before the idol, and then, making a strange sign with his hands raised above his head, turned to leave. Before he actually left, he caught sight of the squad. Specifically Hamlet. His red-hot-coals eyes bored through his son’s skull.  
“My son……” said Ghost Dad in a voice that sounded exactly like one might expect a ghost to sound.  
“Hi dad,” said Hamlet, “What’s shakin’?”  
Ghost Dad looked a little disappointed.  
“Son………… I am dead……. That is what’s shakin’.”  
Marcellus snickered. Ghost Dad shot him a ghost glare and then continued:  
“Son, I have important things to discuss with you. Let us take leave of these nerds; they watch too much anime to be worthy of my presence.”  
“Jeepus Creepus!” exclaimed Horatio.  
Hamlet followed Ghost Dad around to the other side of the statue. The squad could probably still hear them, idk. Who knows. I just want to finish this chapter. I am very drained right now, and very tired, and bored.  
“My son,” said Ghost Dad, “Brace yourself. The tale I must tell you is super duper intense.”  
Hamlet braced himself.  
“My death was no accident. I supposed it could have been an accident, if your gross uncle Claudius accidentally hatched a scheme to steal my wife, kill me, and usurp the throne, but I’m pretty sure things like that don’t happen by accident.”  
“Omg I knew it was Claudius,” said Hamlet. “He’s really horrible. I hate him.”  
“Yea pal me 2. A little over a month ago — my last day on this mortal coil — my cool new spacesuit came in the space mail. I wanted to try it out, so I got in the ol’ starcruiser 5000 and went out into deep space. I stopped the spaceship, tethered myself, and drifted out the door. I love space. It was awesome, until suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I looked back, and my tether had broken. I drifted further and further away from my ship, gently asphyxiating, all alone in space. I know that this seems like an accident, but later, in the death-realm, I learned that before I left, Claudius replaced the safe, durable tethers with unsafe, decaying ones from the 1990’s, knowing my tether would break and I would die.”  
“Claudius is an awful poop head.”  
“I couldn’t agree more, son. After I died, I was drawn from my flesh-prison, and found myself in another dimension. It was unlike anything I can explain to you. I can tell you, however, that I became instantly aware of several important things, one being the circumstances of my death, and another being the meaning of this lizard statue. It is not merely an awesome giant lizard statue, as I believed in life, and as I am sure you believe now. It is an idol of Bokrug, the great water-lizard. When Space Denmark was young, it was populated by bizarre green beings — detestable things, truly horrible to behold. Their technology never reached the point that ours is at now, and thus they never travelled to the stars. In religion, however, they surely saw more than our species ever will, for their god (as evidenced by this idol) was Bokrug the great water-lizard, and in the death-realm he reigns supreme. I saw him, son – when I died. He looks quite like this idol, but there is a certain quality about him – you can sense his omnipotence immediately — but it’s more than that — I can’t explain it. To look upon Bokrug is to look upon truth itself.  
“Every night, at midnight, the barrier between this dimension and the death-realm becomes thin, and every night since my death I have crossed into the garden to worship at the idol of Bokrug. Every night I have prayed I might be avenged, and tonight it seems that my prayers have been answered. By you. Avenge me, my son.”  
Oh no. No no no no no. No. Hamlet couldn’t do that. That was too much responsibility. There was no way he could handle it. He could barely handle doing laundry, or brushing his hair regularly. But Ghost Dad was very spooky, and Hamlet was afraid of what might happen if he didn’t just go along with him.  
“Yeah, sure dad. Vengeance is my middle name.”  
“No it’s not. Your middle name is Scoobert Doobert… I picked it out for you.”  
“Oh. Ok. That’s true. But that won’t stop me from avenging you.”  
“Good, son. I’m counting on you,” said Ghost Dad, and dissolved once again into the nocturnal mist.  
Hamlet wanted to become a plant.


	4. O Great Bokrug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys pray to Bokrug the great water-lizard, and later that night Hamlet shows up outside Horatio's door driven mad by terror and tells him everything.

Horatio and Marcellus had been waiting for some time on the other side of the idol, sick to their stomachs with excitement. The whole of Hamlet’s conversation with Ghost Dad took place in about three minutes, but to the two-thirds of the squad who were left behind, it felt like maybe fifteen or twenty. They went and sat on one of the comfortable benches setting around the idol, and thought about all the things that Ghost Dad could have been telling Hamlet right then. It was very probable that the King’s spirit had a piece of unfinished business — as most ghosts do — and was right then asking Hamlet to finish it for him. Equally feasible was the idea that Ghost Dad had seen something terrible in the moments before his death, and had stayed back a while from the afterlife in order to warn Hamlet of terrible events to come — or, in a slight variation of that same concept, he had found the key to something great, and had come to tell Hamlet of cool, happy things.  
When Hamlet returned with his brows drawn close together and his forehead shimmering a little, it was very plain that Ghost Dad had borne him bad tidings. Horatio stood up.  
“What did he want?”  
“Oh, um. He didn’t really want anything. Um. He said the lizard statue was actually an idol, and we should worship it.”  
Marcellus, feeling a little weird to be the only one still seated, also stood up. Hamlet added:  
“Well, um, not really. He just sort of lowkey implied that we should worship it. It represents Bokrug, the great water-lizard, and Ghost Dad said that in the death-realm Bokrug reigns supreme. So, um, I guess we should worship it. I dunno.”  
“Bro, that’s freaky.”  
Marcellus nodded.  
“So… Should we worship it, like, now? Or did he mean to just worship it in general… like, we just need to be aware that Bokrug is god…?”  
Hamlet shrugged.  
“Yeah I’m not really sure what he meant, but I guess it can’t hurt to worship it right now.”  
The space boys, who were rather inexperienced with idol worshipping, weren’t really sure what to do. They knelt awkwardly at the base of the idol and bowed their heads. The stillness was oppressive, and the meme team could not concentrate on worshipping Bokrug until at last Horatio lifted his head and spoke:  
“O Mighty Bokrug,” he said, “Far too long have we walked in darkness — for Space Denmark is but darkness without the light of your reptilian truth — and far too long have our eyes been blind to your splendorous majesty, and your true seat upon the throne of the death-realm. We have not honored you, and for this we beg forgiveness out of the bounty of your mercy. O Wondrous Lizard, pardon our ignorance! We have only just learned of you! Teach us your ways! We long to stride along the path of righteousness!”  
Marcellus screamed.  
“O Great Water-Lizard!” continued Horatio, “We are yet only students of this ancient religion, but from this day forth, we dedicate ourselves to you. We renounce our old ways of iniquity, and trust that you will lead us into glorious enlightenment. Forever we will serve you, Bokrug. Amen.”  
“Amen,” said Hamlet and Marcellus, very solemnly. They raised their hands above their head, and stood up.  
“Jeepus creepus, Horatio,” said Marcellus, “That was beautiful.”   
“Thanks bro.”  
The squad sat on one of the benches around the idol. The air was thick and cool and still, and it was eerily silent, save for the very faint bassline coming from the direction of the castle – the rave was still happening, apparently. Wow. It had been like three days. They were about to break the standing record.  
“So, did Ghost dad say anything else? You guys were talking for a while. Are you sure he didn’t want anything?” said Horatio.  
“Nope,” said Hamlet. “Nah. He just said to worship Bokrug.”  
“Okay.”  
Hamlet was totally hiding something. He yawned.  
“Let’s go back inside. I’m tired and cold.”  
Horatio and Marcellus muttered their vague consent, and the boys walked back to the castle, each a little shaken by the night’s events, and each afraid to acknowledge it. The pathways of colorful glass glowed brightly in the darkness, shifting colors at varying intervals so that the garden could have been some kind of cool outdoor disco. As they neared the castle, the faint thump of house music grew louder, and more was audible than only the bassline, and the garden was even more like a disco. They began to dance down the path, gently at first, but more and more violently as the volume of the music grew in proportion to their vicinity to the castle.  
They entered the castle, bid each other farewell and goodnight, and parted, still a little freaked out. The little dance party had served as a sort of catharsis, but new knowledge almost always brings about new fears, and nothing could shake the great fear that now rested on the shoulders of the space trio. It need not even be stated that the weight of Hamlet’s fear was far heavier than the rest of the squad’s fears combined. He had garnered much more knowledge — much worse knowledge — than Horatio or Marcellus; of course he had more to fear. He changed into his space pajamas, and lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. So much fear. Far too much fear to sleep. Less than an hour later, he was standing in Horatio’s doorway.  
“Hamlet?”  
Horatio hadn’t been sleeping either. Hamlet looked past him into his room. It was hard to believe that he had just finished unpacking. The desk was almost entirely obscured by loose papers and ancient-looking books. A space hotplate sat on one corner, partially covered by the clutter, heating a space teapot. Some paper had caught fire. Do not leave hotplates unattended.  
“Sorry. Are you busy right now?”  
“No. No, I was just trying to find some stuff about Bokrug. I dunno. It can wait. Are you okay?”  
Hamlet’s first instinct was to reply that he was fine, everything was cool, don’t worry. But then he remembered that it was somewhere around two in the morning and he probably looked pretty awful, and he realized that it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t okay, and there was no way he could convince Horatio otherwise. There was no escape.  
“No.”  
“What’s going on?”  
Hamlet made no reply, brushed past him into the room, sat down on the bed. He was very pale, not emo-trash-who-never-goes-outside pale but sick-almost-to-death-with-dread pale. He stared woefully into Horatio’s eyes.  
“For fuck’s sake Hamlet, what’s wrong?”  
Hamlet looked away. Horatio sat next to him and grabbed his face.  
“Hamlet.”  
“I have to kill Claudius.”  
Shocking!  
“What the literal actual fuckenign…. Honestly. Bro. I mean, Claudius is an awful poop head but… Murder? Bro. No… That’s just too X-Treme.”  
“No, like…. Ghost Dad asked me to. To avenge him.”  
It doesn’t count as murder if you’re avenging someone. Horatio released Hamlet’s face.  
“Jeepus creepus my man, did Claudius kill Ghost Dad?”  
Hamlet just nodded.  
“Oh my god… Holy shit… Wow. So now you have to avenge him?”  
Hamlet nodded again. If his blue eyes were icy, they were melting. Down his face. He was crying.  
“I can’t do it Horatio. I can’t. I hate Claudius, but… To take a life — I just can’t, you know?”  
He folded forward, hugging his knees to his face. Horatio stroked his hair in a very bro-to-bro sort of way, just trying to comfort his pal.  
“It’s cool, Hamlet. Everything’s cool. No, actually I guess it’s not. Um, I dunno. We’ll figure this out, okay bro? Chill. Have some tea. I’ve got some space earl grey on my hotplate over there.”  
Horatio stood and picked up the teapot, and very casually poured about half of its contents over the small fire on his desk. It hissed and smoked. He set the teapot back on the hotplate, and retrieved a couple of mugs from a cardboard box beside the bed.  
“Here.”  
“Thanks.”  
The boys sat on the bed at a truly platonic distance. Hamlet laced his fingers around his mug, savoring the warmth that radiated through his pale, frosty-cool hands. He brought the mug close to his face, breathing in the steam that rose from within. The tea smelled lovely, but he dared not drink it for fear that it wasn’t yet cool enough and he would burn his tongue. Nah, nevermind. Hamlet had very little sense of self-preservation and he wanted that tea. He very slowly, very cautiously, took a sip. It was safe. Fantastic.


	5. The Part Where It Starts To Get Gay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yes homo

The space boys sat for quite some time sipping their tea in uncomfortable silence. Horatio had no idea what the proper thing was to say in this sort of situation. Surely Ghost Dad’s wishes were not to be taken lightly, but then, neither was murder — but Ghost Dad had to be avenged — but he couldn’t just stand idly by while his best friend fucken killed a guy —?????. There was really no eloquent way to express his concern that Hamlet not murder anyone while still seeming supportive and chill. So he said nothing. He sat cross-legged on the bed and drank his tea and looked at the trash prince sitting beside him. Though his bro had seen some crazy shit, and no doubt was changed irreversibly within, on the outside he was still the same tragic emo memelord. He was beautiful, Horatio thought. Too much eyeliner, perhaps, but still very lovely.   
“Bro,” he said suddenly, for he felt that he must break the silence before his internal monologue got any gayer.  
Hamlet looked up from his tea.  
“Yeah?”   
“Did Ghost Dad actually say you had to kill Claudius to avenge him? Or could you just, like, prank him really bad?”  
“He didn’t tell me like, explicitly, but, you know, I just thought you always avenged a murder by killing the murderer. I dunno.”  
“Well, like, if we pranked him and Ghost Dad still didn’t feel avenged, we could always just kill him later. I just don’t think murder is something you should rush into, you feel?”  
That sounded reasonable.  
“Alrighty cool. Do you have, like, any ideas?”  
“Nah.”  
“It would have to be a really harsh prank.”  
“Yeah. What if we filled all his shoes with spiders?”  
“Horatio that’s not practical how would we catch that many spiders?”  
“Ok, but…. It would be so great….”  
He trailed off, and looked away, and sipped some tea. Spiders were a great idea. Nobody understood him.   
Hamlet felt very relieved that there might be an alternative to killing his uncle. A great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he felt, if only for a moment, that perhaps everything wasn’t horrible after all — but that was to be expected after any interaction with Horatio. What a bro. He was hope and reassurance incarnate; his mere presence purged any and all fear and doubt from the air. That was why Hamlet had come to him tonight, when sleep seemed impossible. That was why Hamlet was totally 100% in love with him, in a gay way.  
When I first thought of writing this scene, I planned to explain Hamlet’s next action by saying that so many crazy spooky things had happened that night that he had felt all the fear he could feel, and had none left to deter him from what he did next.  In reality, however, it is very rarely that people are driven by such romantic notions as this. (I am aware that much of this fic does not reflect reality but idc w/e) Hamlet hadn’t run out of fear, fear is infinite. He was still afraid of things – but he was also impulsive, and riding an adrenaline high from the events of that night, and he had been suppressing super gay feelings about Horatio for a very long time. This alone he likely would have been able to handle, but when he considered that, with his idea of pranking Claudius, Horatio had perhaps saved Hamlet from being a murderer, all the gay, which had hitherto been rising to the surface very, very slowly; burst forth all at once in a great impulsive rush, and he leaned over and kissed Horatio right in the fuckening face.  
For one brief moment, Hamlet’s entire universe was made of terrible, soul-crushing uncertainty and regret deeper than any he had ever known – then he felt Horatio’s lips part slightly, and his hand moved to cradle Hamlet’s face in a way that was probably not platonic at all – and there was no longer any regret in Hamlet’s universe – there was only Horatio. Their tongues battled for dominance? tbh i have no idea how to write this. I think I heard that line in a meme once or something. Hamlet’s hand came to rest on the base of Horatio’s neck. Good lord, his skin was incredible. But… how?  
Hamlet jerked his face back away from Horatio’s.  
“Do you moisturize?”  
Horatio looked confused and disappointed.  
“Bro… bro, not now…. Don’t stop bro..”  
“Listen pal, you gotta tell me your skincare routine. No homo or anything but honestly your skin is incredible.”  
Horatio looked sad and really confused.  
“No homo?”  
Hamlet’s face flushed violently. How could he have hecked up like that? Of course it was homo! Jeepus creepus! This was so embarrassing.. He lowered his gaze to Horatio’s bedspread, because he really couldn’t look him in the face, and was horrified to realize that in all the excitement he had just let go of his fukin mug like a fukcing idiot, just fuckengin dropped it on the floor, and it had shattered and of course there was tea spilled everywhere. He panicked.  
“Bro I gotta go,”  
He got up and rushed to the door, tripped over the threshold, terrified to look back at Horatio.  
“Wait man come back!”  
Hamlet was stumbling down the hallway at full speed, but he stopped very gracelessly and looked back at Horatio.  
“Yes homo,” he said very pointedly, then turned and sprinted down the hallway, his face burning crimson.


	6. Sorry This Chapter Is So Overdue, I Blame The Ol' Depression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literally just a chapter about what Hamlet's wearing because I feel bad about not updating for so long.

Chapter 6  
I guess I should apologize for not updating this for a few months or however long it’s been. I don’t even have a good excuse. The ennui made me do it? sorry lol,,, if it gives u any satisfaction to know this, i haven’t been out doing fun things, i’ve just been laying on the floor in a pile of laundry this whole time drinking really awful cold black coffee and listening to “l’amour cest comme les bateaux” over and over again. i hate myself anyway here we go:  
Hamlet woke late the next morning. Sunlight was streaming in through his curtains, the faint house music had finally stopped, and he could smell space breakfast cooking somewhere downstairs. He felt very peaceful — you know those few moments of absolute peace and innocence when you first wake up, before you can recollect anything that happened the night before, and the day seems fresh and 100% hopeful — and then the poor dude remembered. He remembered that there was a terrible lizard god, and he had to avenge his undead dad, and he had kissed his best friend out of the blue and then accidentally said “no homo” afterwards and majorly hecked the whole thing up. And when he remembered, he snapped into reality and he knew that the day ahead of him could promise nothing but more gunch, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, and for morning to never ever come.  
He ran both his hands through his greasy emo bangs and pressed down hard on his closed eyelids until he saw bright spots. His eyes felt sticky. He had left his contacts in overnight. God damn. He couldn’t do anything right.  
His hip popped when he got out of bed. He slipped a little bit on a crumpled t-shirt laying on the floor. He flicked the lights on and looked in the mirror. Shockingly enough, he looked pretty much the same as he had yesterday—the events of the previous night hadn’t changed him at all on the outside—though he felt much, much older.  
His hair was really nasty and last night’s eyeliner was smeared horribly, filling in his eye sockets like skeleton costume makeup—had he cried a little last night? yea probably. He spent quite a while rubbing it off with his pajama sleeve, even though there was makeup remover setting only a few feet away on his armouoiir (haha how tf do u spell that??? lol). He sprayed some dry shampoo in his hair (it was still really gross though, he hadn’t washed it in quite a while) and put on a black MCR t-shirt and black skinny jeans, black combat boots, and lots of black eyeliner. Goffik. Gothic. C’est Gothique! Now he could leave his room.  
He paused at the door. Where was he going?  
He couldn’t face Horatio after what had happened last night, and there was really no place he could go where he could be assured he wouldn’t see him. It would be just as bad to stay in his room, though—he didn’t want to seem like he was avoiding him. Boy howdy, he wished he just hadn’t fucked up in the first place.  
But there was no going back now. And after considering it for a little while, Hamlet could only think of one path of action through which he could sustain the least damage. He was just gonna look really cute.  
That was really the only thing Hamlet had going for him. He wasn’t clever or charming or even nice; he was stupid and careless and a major fucking asshole, but darn he sure was cute. That was the only card he had left to play. He was pretty sure it would still be really super duper fucken awkward if he saw Horatio, but looking good could give him the upper hand.  
He took a shower and washed his hair, blow dried it and straightened his bangs in a really emo way. He put on black leather skinny jeans just like Draco wore in My Immortal and this really awful women’s dress shirt that he had found at a thrift store. It was made of this disgusting faded black polyester with little gold diamonds all over it, and Hamlet had torn the shoulder pads out of it and wore it with only a few of the buttons fastened so that instead of just garbage-trashy it was sexy-trashy. He put on some more eyeliner and just one earring, like a pirate. He looked like Newports and bad coffee at two in the morning. It was Really Bad in a Really Good way.  
Dressed for Success, such a Mess, So Depressed, Nonetheless he’s the Best, on a Quest to Impress; Hamlet strode down the hallway from his room humming a tune by MCR.  
Anyway sorrry


	7. We Meet Clod and Gert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamlet decides to apologize to Horatio for being honest and sharing his feelings, and he yells at his parents. I try to make up funny nicknames for Claudius and Gertrude but none of them are actually very good.

(AN: i was rereading chapter 6 and i realized that i 4got to write that Hamlet brushed his teeth so pls just know that he did. his breath is minty fresh. also, he is wearing the same combat boots that he was before he changed. i 4got to add that too. and in chapter 4, it’s midnight and then events that take place “””less than an hour later””” happen at 2 a.m…… theres no continuity here at all, folks. i have no fucken idea what im doin.)  
Feeling very cute and very prepared for any messy awful drama, Hamlet went down to a large room on the first floor of the castle that was sort of like a hotel lobby with a complimentary continental breakfast, except super nice because it was for space royals; and got a cup of space coffee—black, because he was feeling really cool and badass in his faux-leather pants, and he felt like drinking girly coffee with cream and sugar would ruin the feeling completely. He took the coffee out into the garden and, since he really-really didn’t feel like returning to the scene of last night’s shocking events, sat down at a picnic table in a gazebo at the outer edge of the garden, far away from the statue of Bokrug. The gazebo was made of some pale translucent milky stone, formed in fluid natural shapes that could have said to have been inspired by Art Nouveau if such a movement had taken place on Space Denmark, and it was at the center of a formal rectangular pond so that it had to be reached by a series of little stepping stones ornately carved with scenes from Space Denmark’s history. All around the gazebo there were fountains with brightly colored lights that stained the water pink and gold and green so that the spray of water sparkled like jets of colorful fire. The pond was surrounded by a dense grove of flowering trees, whose large pink blooms carried a fragrance as strong as that of hyacinths, but considerably sweeter and heavier, and all over the gazebo there grew spidery purple vines with clusters of tiny white flowers that attracted space butterflies. It was a very nice place to hang out, and probably would’ve been more popular with the teens of Space Elsinore’s court, if there wasn’t another hangout with a cool lizard statue just a few hundred feet away. At the moment it was deserted save Hamlet, who sat with space earbuds screwed into his head, listening to MCR and drawing skeletons in his sketchbook. He had thrown the coffee into the pond because he was a pussy and couldn’t drink black coffee no matter how cool he thought it made him look, but he had halfheartedly smoked a space cigarette, just for the aesthetic. He was very conscious of how his outfit made him look, and he was at least trying to live up to it.  
After quite a while, Hamlet was bored. Horatio hadn’t come out to find him, and that was really what he had been waiting for the whole time if he was being honest with himself. He thought it would be nice to be found sitting here in this flowery gazebo sketching and smoking in his Wild-n-Messy outfit. He must look wonderfully picturesque. It was really a shame Horatio hadn’t happened upon him. It would’ve been so flan-tastic.   
But Horatio, he thought, was probably just sitting in the Space Elsinore library doing got dam research on that fucken Bokrug. He probably wasn’t thinking of Hamlet at all, unless to laugh at him—god, he had made such a fool of himself! He had to go apologize. That was the thing to do. He would apologize, and they would laugh, and put this whole messy gay thing behind them and move on with their friendship. Soon it would just be an embarrassing inside joke—“lol remember that time i was in love with u ahhhahah,,,,, that was wild lmao”—and there would be no more of this awful uncertainty and suspense.  
Of course Horatio was going absolutely mad thinking about Hamlet, he had lain awake for hours since, replaying the scene in his head over and over again and wondering what he had done wrong and why Hamlet hadn’t come to find him (he must be completely indifferent to Horatio; surely the kiss was just the result of too much happening to fast; he must regret it horribly; they ought to just forget the whole thing)—but, though perhaps he should have guessed it, Hamlet had no fuckenign idea that Horatio was doing pretty much the same exact thing he was, and he hated himself much more than usual and was sure that Horatio must hate him too and that it was all his fault.  
Hamlet was about to get up to go apologize like he had decided, he was just putting the finishing touches on his drawing (a cool emo picture of a skeleton with an electric guitar doing a kick-flip on a skateboard that was on fire) when suddenly an old and gross couple came into the gazebo—his mom and Uncle Claudius! He was not happy to see them; he disliked parents in general as sort of a punk principle, and he especially hated Uncle Claudius since he was so awful. He glared up at them and removed a single earbud.   
“Have you been smoking?” said Gross Gertie.  
“Is that a girl shirt?” said King Klod.  
“fuk off ur not my real dad,” said Hamlet.  
“Don’t talk to me like that, son. You’re grounded.”   
“u can’t ground me! i never go anywhere! i never do anything! what can u ground me from!”  
“I don’t know,” fumed Awful UncleDad, “but you’re grounded alright, hooboy you sure are grounded.”   
Hamlet scoffed and brushed past them with his sketchbook under his arm. Seeing the two of them together at all had drastically darkened his mood—before, he had been despairing in that wonderfully ascetic, masocistic way that you do when you’re falling in love with someone, and he was actually having a pretty good time hating himself and feeling utterly hopeless because at least he was thinking of Horatio, but now that he had seen Gunch-trude and Clod the Cuck his brain was sloshing around in a nasty cocktail of negative feelings: cynicism, resentment, disgust, plain ol’ anger, etc.—and the lovely sublime despair was all but lost in it. He was even angrier at them for ruining that thing for him. He was halfway across the stepping stones when he heard Terrible Trudy call to him:  
“Hamlet! We’re having a family movie night tonight so we can bond and shit, u know since we’re sorta regrouping our family now what with the incest and all that gunch! We thought we’d let you pick—we came to ask you which movie you’d like to watch?”  
Hamlet had an awful idea. He turned and looked Uncle Claudius right in the eyeballs and—I know this has been done in so many Hamlet AU’s but really it’s just such a great concept—said in his most menacing voice:  
“Let’s watch the Lion King.”  
It was a well-aimed shot, and it hit its mark. Krusty King Klod’s eyebrows widened and the color drained out of his old gunchy face. He fell back against one of the columns of the gazebo with his lips moving noiselessly like a fish, and DirtRude yelled something about why?? was claudius reacting like that??, but Hamlet didn’t hear it because he had jammed his earbuds back in his earholes and was walking away down the garden path to the tune an MCR song. He had argued with lots of people; he knew to walk away after he landed a blow. If he had stayed to hear anything either of them had to say he knew he would heck it up, and he knew there was no way he could come up with something that clever again.   
And so Hamlet, his noggin all achey with anger, walked with affected carelessness down the glass pathway towards the castle to go apologize for being so fucknig gay. He secretly hoped Horatio wouldn’t be able to get over any of it and the whole gay thing would be like an iceberg standing in the way of their friendship Titantic—he secretly hoped that Horatio would leave him in a soppy sobbing mess on the floor and feel absolutely awful about it but have no idea what to do—he secretly hoped that the two of them would turn that one impulsive kiss into a terrible dramatic ordeal and wreck their lives over it. He secretly wanted it to be very messy and disastrous for everyone. Hamlet’s a real messy bitch who lives for drama.


	8. I'm In College Now And I Feel Bad About Not Updating But Also Oh My God Those Are Some Outdated Memes!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I am very sorry for leaving this fic for so long but I'm literally the biggest mess on earth now tbh! WARNING: shallow characterization, purple prose, bad memes, etc. also they have sex. thats about it. its not graphic though u gotta go someplace else for that. no pornography here this is a fic of God. i think im gonna make them crush up xanax and snort it in the next chapter though.

(A.N.: I'm literally done with my first semester of college its been so long since I've updated. I reread the entire thing and GOD am I embarrassed at myself! But I'm going to keep writing and let this fic become sort of.. a thread running through my life... im going to keep updating every once in a while and see how my writing style evolves..... i'd like to think im a better writer now that i have lived a little......who was it that said an artists job is to know everything.....? well i know about twice as much as i did before i left home thats for sure.....!! so we'll see.......)  
Horatio was lying on his floor watching Space youtube poops when Hamlet knocked on his door. Like I just said in the previous chapter, he had been up all night worrying about whether Hamlet was really actually gay for him (A.N.: he totally is!! :3) and ended up convincing himself that the entire situation was somehow his fault, so he made up his mind to apologize to Hamlet the next time he saw him, which hopefully wouldn't be too soon, especially if Horatio had anything to do with it: he planned to spend a month or so curled up on the floor being ashamed of himself.  
Anyway when Hamlet knocked on his door Horatio immediately assumed the worst; which was that it was Hamlet and he wanted to talk about the events of the previous night, which was true. But God, he couldn't let Hamlet know how big of a deal this was to him. So he sloppily arranged his curls in the mirror, wincing at the horrible dark circles under his eyes, shoved some clutter under the bed with his foot, and opened the door super duper extra nonchalantly, raising his eyebrows in feigned aloofness:  
"Oh hey Hamlet bro pal dude buddy whats up mon amigo!!"  
Was it just him, or did Hamlet look a little disappointed that Horatio's greeting was so extremely platonic? and so nonchalant? so cool, calm, unbothered--No, of course not. Horatio was definitely just searching. Reaching for things that weren't there. Wishful thinking. Or whatever the most concise way to put that is. He didn't look disappointed, he just looked like a horrible drug addicted goblin rent boy but in a good way and Horatio definitely noticed because he's totally gay for him omg  
"Heyyyyy," said Hamlet, looking at the floor, "I was just--about last night--I was. um. I'm....................sorry..............b.......r..o......................." (here he looked up from the floor, desperately, into Horatio's eyes, and Horatio's heart skipped a beat) "That was super weird. I'm really sorry."  
"Hey bro don't worry about it.." said Horatio, "We all do gay shit sometimes. You could make a Richard Dawkins meme out of it, you know that stupid 'We Are All Africans' shirt meme, you know, where people replace the text on his shirt, you could have that meme but with 'We Are All Do Gay Shit Sometimes,' fuck I don't know, what the fuck am I saying.... anyway it's cool. We don't have to make it weird." He stepped back, inviting Hamlet in to his room, "Are you busy? Do you want to just chill? Like as bros?"  
Hamlet stepped back unconsciously. He was threatened by Horatio's nonchalance, which was entirely feigned and not that convincing but Hamlet was fooled since he was so insecure about himself.  
"Uh--! I, sure yeah I'm not really doing anything. Yea. Dude--!" He followed Horatio through the door and punched him in the arm in an attempt to be bro-ly, but he was so nervous he actually hit him really hard, and Horatio was in considerable pain, but he tried his goddamned best not to show it, and just sort of chuckled and shoved Hamlet back, in a platonic and manly fashion, and Hamlet ruffled his hair in a less platonic way but it still could be taken as just guys-being-dudes-and-roughhousing, and Horatio giggled and shoved Hamlet again and Hamlet fell back onto the bed and pulled Horatio down with him and at this point it was pretty safe to say that it wasn't completely platonic anymore, there was definitely a homoerotic element to all of it, and then they started making out and YEP it was definitely pretty gay and suddenly they took their clothes off and started having sex just like draco and enoby in My Immortal!!!!!!!!!  
I really don't want to write graphic m/m sex so right here at this point you can just search Hamlet/Horatio smut and read that and pretend its a part of this storyline and then come back.  
Hamlet lay against Horatio with one hand straying through his bro's adorable ringlets and the other hand holding the space cigarette they were sharing romantically.  
"Dude. Bro," he said. "Gay sex is awesome. Why did we never think to do this before..."  
Horatio just smiled and pulled him a little closer. Hamlet rolled over onto his side and positioned his face mere inches away from Horatio's, which wasn't uncomfortable at all after all the other stuff they had just done.  
"No for real though dude I'm in LUV with you I think."  
"Lol same," said Horatio.  
"NICE"  
Hamlet took a long drag off the space cigarette. “Horatio—“ he said, “What are we?”   
“Aliens,” said Horatio, which was 100% true since they were from space in case you forgot.   
“You know that’s not what I meant, Horatio,” he sighed, “I mean like—what are we…? The two of us… what are we to each other?”   
Horatio furrowed his brow, as one does.   
“We’re the meme team dream team. We’re unstoppable and we’re gonna prank the FUCK outta your uncle. That’s what we are; that’s what matters now. Also let’s date.”  
Hamlet kissed him on the nose. And then sprung out of bed, ready to PRANK!!   
ya anyway i.... just chugged nyquil and took a few melatonin tablets and i can feel it kickin in so i guess im gonna call it a night lads. im posting this now i dont care how bad it is. cheers  
(A.N.: i encourage you all to place bets on how long i am going to sleep for. i will update you in the next chapter of this fic. cheers.)


	9. To Sleep, Perchance To Meme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week goes by like a video montage. We meet Ophelia and feel bad for her. Hamlet crushes up xanax and snorts it and passes out.

(A.N.: I ended up sleeping for like 15 hours. Also aren’t you proud of me? I’m updating again less than a week later. Look at me go!! I’m so productive!!!!)

The next week went by like a video montage with lots of lens flares set to cheesy 90s music in a faux-indie movie. Colors were brighter, music was catchier, jokes were funnier, they weren’t ever tired, each prank was wilder than the next, Horatio pierced his tongue, they laughed at everything, nothing could stop them, until finally one day the two were walking in the gardens, looking for some space snails to use in a prank, and they happened to stop under the idol of Bokrug. They hadn’t stopped to worship the idol this whole time; time was flying by at lightning-mcqueen speed and the week had passed in what seemed like an hour - they just didn’t have time for it.

But during the week that had passed, the idol of Bokrug had undergone a spooky change - a barely perceptible change, but as Hamlet looked up at it he was immediately aware that something was different. Horatio saw it too. 

Before, the idol’s face was perfectly expressionless. But in the past week, somehow its mouth had turned up at the corners, and its lips had parted slightly to reveal the tiniest glimpse of a mouthful of very sharp and menacing teeth. The eyes, which had up until this point stared vacantly out into space, seemed knowing, and maybe even twinkled. The color of the stone had even seemed to change, and seemed a little rosier around the statue’s cheeks: Bokrug was smiling at them.

Although it’s completely possible that the lizard god was being nice and friendly and was just happy that some people had noticed him, it was still really really fucking scary that a stone idol had changed its expression, and Hamlet and Horatio froze at the base of the statue, terrified. They didn’t have to say anything to each other; they both knew they were thinking the same thing. And at exactly the same time, the two space boys just bolted and ran like the fucking wind away from the statue and through the garden back to the castle. 

They ran into the castle and up the majestic staircase at the front and Hamlet ran right SMACK into Ophelia who was descending the stairs wistfully. (A.N.: I haven’t forgotten about Ophelia, as a depressed teenage girl she is p much my patron saint and I have done dozens of paintings and drawings of her. I have a pretty cool story in mind for her in this, but I just haven’t had a convenient opportunity to introduce her. Side note: you know that painting of Ophelia by John Everett Millais..? The model for it, Elizabeth Siddal—google her. She’s absolutely heartbreaking. Anyway) He literally ran into her at Full Speed and knocked her over and the two of them tumbled down a few stairs. Horatio stopped in his tracks and turned, too shocked to run after them.

“Ophelia!” said Hamlet, who had sorta rolled down the stairs and ended up in the fetal position on the landing, “Oh my god I’m so sorry! Holy shit! Are you okay?”

Ophelia, who was laying facedown on the stairs several feet below him, rose to her knees and pushed her thick curly hair out of her eyes. Her mouth was bleeding, and her blouse had come untucked. Her enormous black doe eyes were watering in pain.

“Ya dude I’m fine lol,” she said, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and crawled to her feet. 

“Are you sure? Oh my god, you’re bleeding.” He stood and went to her and reached out his arms to comfort her or check and see if she was okay or just hug her or whatever, but she backed away. 

“No. No, I’m alright. Thanks though. Sorry. Bye~” she said, and rushed down the stairs. Hamlet stayed where he was but looked upset.

“Why won’t you text me back!!!” he called after her. 

“Sorry~!” 

Hamlet stood gazing after her long after she had disappeared around the curve of the staircase. He would have stood there longer, but he felt Horatio’s hand on his shoulder.

“Dude…” he said, “She’s acting… really weird? What’s up with that? Also why are so upset about it? I thought you were in love with me? She doesn’t matter? Dude—bro—do you still like her? Omg—“

Hamlet flushed bright red. The truth was, of course, more complicated than that, but Horatio wasn’t entirely wrong—he had always sort of had a crush on Ophelia, and they were always “talking,” never actually “dating,” so when she mysteriously stopped answering his texts several weeks ago it was not a cut-and-dry breakup like it would have been if they were actually an item at all, instead it was all loose ends and no explanations, and Hamlet didn’t feel like he had a right to actually be angry since she didn’t break up with him since they weren’t dating, but he also felt like he was still entitled to her in a sense, since he was a boy and thought of girls he liked that way. He wasn’t really in love with her but he was secretly and sort of ashamedly angry that she had stopped liking him. 

Of course he couldn’t articulate any of this, and while he knew that he wasn’t thinking unfaithful thoughts, he felt secret sneaky guilt and it seemed to him like maybe he actually was still infatuated with Ophelia because that was the simplest reason why he would be so angry. So he blushed furiously and rushed up the stairs past Horatio.

“No omg fuck off dude I’m gay omg—!”

Horatio didn’t want to follow Hamlet up the stairs and he didn’t want to go downstairs and run into Ophelia so he pretended there was something very interesting happening outside the window and stood there looking out of it for as long as he could. 

Hamlet ran up the stairs and to his room. He got out a space legal pad and a space pen and made a list:

“Things That Are Bad:

-Horatio’s mad at me

-Ophelia’s mad at me

-My uncle killed my dad

-My dad’s a ghost??

-The lizard statue in the garden is coming to life??????”

He wanted to make a list of things that were good but he couldn’t think of any. He lay down on the floor, even more depressed than before.

“To be, or not to be—“ he muttered to himself, and then the rest of that monologue, until he got to the part with “to sleep, perchance to dream—“

He sat up. 

“To sleep, perchance to dream—!”

On his dresser, there was an empty chapstick tube crammed full of little rectangular white pills. Space xanax. (A.N.: I do not endorse drug use but I want this fic to be as wild as My Immortal so I’m just gonna write them doing copious amounts of drugs and sex.) Usually he just took them orally, just to take the edge off ya know, but now he wanted to sleep and perchance definitely not dream. And then wake up so this fic can keep going and get even more convoluted. So he took his lighter and crushed up half of a little white pill under a hot topic receipt, made four neat little lines with his hot topic rewards card, and sucked em up his nose one after the other. For a few minutes he didn’t feel anything—then it hit him all at once. He absolutely melted onto the floor. It was like his body was being pulled into the carpet, and at the same time he was completely weightless. His skull was expanding like one of those foam dinosaur pills you put in water and it expands into a spongy foam dinosaur, you know those things? I guess sometimes they’re other animals too—at last he couldn’t keep his eyes open, and surrendered to the drug use which is bad, and the rest was silence (for like an hour.)


End file.
